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Mobile operating system

A mobile operating system, also referred to as mobile OS, is an operating system that operates a smartphone, tablet, PDA, or other mobile device. Modern mobile operating systems combine the features of a personal computer operating system with other features, including a touchscreen, cellular, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, GPS mobile navigation, camera, video camera, speech recognition, voice recorder, music player, near field communication and infrared blaster.

Mobile devices with mobile communications capabilities (e.g. smartphones) contain two mobile operating systems - the main user-facing software platform is supplemented by a second low-level proprietary real-time operating system which operates the radio and other hardware. Research has shown that these low-level systems may contain a range of security vulnerabilities permitting malicious base stations to gain high levels of control over the mobile device.

History

Mobile operating system milestones mirror the development of mobile phones and smartphones:

1973–1992 Mobile phones use embedded systems to control operation.

1993 The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, has a touchscreen, email and PDA features.

2008 OHA releases Android 1.0 with the HTC Dream (T-Mobile G1) as the first Android phone.

2009 Palm introduces webOS with the Palm Pre. By 2012 webOS devices were no longer sold.

2009 Samsung announces the Bada OS with the introduction of the Samsung S8500.

2010 Windows Phone OS phones are released but are not compatible with the previous Windows Mobile OS.

2011 MeeGo the first mobile Linux, combining Maemo and Moblin, is introduced with the Nokia N9, a collaboration of Nokia, Intel and Linux Foundation

In September 2011 Samsung, Intel and the Linux Foundation announced that their efforts will shift from Bada, MeeGo to Tizen during 2011 and 2012.

In October 2011 the Mer project was announced, centered around an ultra-portable Linux + HTML5/QML/JavaScript Core for building products with, derived from the MeeGo codebase.

2012 Mozilla announced in July 2012 that the project previously known as "Boot to Gecko" was now Firefox OS and had several handset OEMs on board.

2013 Canonical announced Ubuntu Touch, a version of the Linux distribution expressly designed for smartphones. The OS is built on the Android Linux kernel, using Android drivers, but does not use any of the Java-like code of Android.

2013 BlackBerry released their new operating system for smartphones and tablets, BlackBerry 10.

2013 Google release latest version of Android Kitkat.

2014 Microsoft release Windows Phone 8.1 in February 2014.

2014 Apple release iOS 8 in September 2014.

2014 Google release Android Lollipop in November 2014.

Current software platforms

Android

Android (based on the Linux Kernel) is from Google Inc.. It has the largest installed base worldwide on smartphones. Most of Android is free and open source, but a large amount of software on Android devices (such as Play Store, Google Search, Google Play Services, Google Music, and so on) are proprietary and licensed. Android's releases prior to 2.0 (1.0, 1.5, 1.6) were used exclusively on mobile phones. Android 2.x releases were mostly used for mobile phones but also some tablets. Android 3.0 was a tablet-oriented release and does not officially run on mobile phones. The current Android version is 4.4 Android's releases are nicknamed after sweets or dessert items like Cupcake (1.5), Donut (1.6), Eclair (2.0), Frozen Yogurt ("Froyo") (2.2), Ginger Bread (2.3), Honeycomb (3.0), Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0), Jelly Bean (4.1), (4.2), (4.3) Kit Kat (4.4), and Lollipop (5.0). Most major mobile service providers carry an Android device. Since HTC Dream was introduced, there has been an explosion in the number of devices that carry Android OS. From second quarter of 2009 to the second quarter of 2010, Android's worldwide market share rose 850% from 1.8% to 17.2%. On November 15, 2011, Android reached 52.5% of the global smartphone market share. On September 2014 Android's global market share rose to 85%.

iOS

iOS is from Apple Inc.. It has second largest installed base worldwide on smartphones behind Android. It is closed source and proprietary and built on open source Darwin core OS. The Apple iPhone,iPod Touch, iPad and second-generation Apple TV all use an operating system called iOS, which is derived from Mac OS X. Native third party applications were not officially supported until the release of iOS 2.0 on July 11, 2008. Before this, "jailbreaking" allowed third party applications to be installed, and this method is still available. Currently all iOS devices are developed by Apple and manufactured by Foxconn or another of Apple's partners. As of September 2014, iOS global market share was 11%.

Windows Phone

Windows Phone is from Microsoft. It is closed source and proprietary. It has third largest installed base on smartphones behind Android and iOS. On February 15, 2010, Microsoft unveiled its next-generation mobile OS, Windows Phone. The new mobile OS includes a completely new over-hauled UI inspired by Microsoft's "Metro Design Language". It includes full integration of Microsoft services such as OneDrive and Office, Xbox Music, Xbox Video, Xbox Live games and Bing, but also integrates with many other non-Microsoft services such as Facebook and Google accounts. Windows Phone devices are made primarily by Nokia, along with HTC, Samsung. As of September 2014, Windows Phone market share was 3%.

Firefox OS

Firefox OS is from Mozilla. It is open source and uses Mozilla Public License. According to Ars Technica, "Mozilla says that B2G is motivated by a desire to demonstrate that the standards-based open Web has the potential to be a competitive alternative to the existing single-vendor application development stacks offered by the dominant mobile operating systems."

Sailfish OS

Sailfish OS is from Jolla. It is partly open source and adopts GPL (core and middleware), however the user interface is closed source. After Nokia failed in 2011 with the MeeGo project most of the MeeGo team have left Nokia, and established Jolla as a company to use MeeGo and MER business opportunities. In 2012 Linux Sailfish OS based on MeeGo and using MER core distribution has been launched for public use. The first device, Jolla (mobile phone) was unveiled on 20 May 2013.

Tizen

Tizen is hosted by the Linux Foundation and support from the Tizen Association, guided by a Technical Steering Group composed of Intel and Samsung. Tizen is an operating system for devices including smartphones, tablets, in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) devices, and smart TVs. It is an open source system that aims to offer a consistent user experience across devices. Tizen's main components are the Linux kernel and the WebKit runtime. According to Intel, Tizen “combines the best of LiMo and MeeGo." HTML5apps are emphasized, with MeeGo encouraging its members to transition to Tizen, stating that the "future belongs to HTML5-based applications, outside of a relatively small percentage of apps, and we are firmly convinced that our investment needs to shift toward HTML5." Tizen will be targeted at a variety of platforms such as handsets, tablets, smart TVs and in-vehicle entertainment. On May 17, 2013, Tizen released version 2.1, code-named Nectarine.

Ubuntu Touch OS

Ubuntu Touch OS is from Canonical Ltd.. It is open source and uses GPL.

Blackberry

BlackBerry 10 (based on the QNX OS) is from BlackBerry. As a smart phone OS, it is closed source and proprietary. It is used mostly by Government employees. BlackBerry 10 is the next generation platform for BlackBerry smartphones and tablets. All phones and tablets are manufactured by Blackberry itself. One of the dominant platforms in the world, it's global market share has been reduced to less than 1% in late 2014.

Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit

Windows 8.1 Pro 64-bit (based on Windows 8.1) is from Microsoft. As a laplet OS, it is open source and proprietary.

Google Android

Google Android is a combination of Android OS and Google.

Nintendo 3DS OS

Nintendo 3DS OS is a tablet computer OS. Nintendo 2DS is a handheld game console & a tablet computer.

Discontinued software platforms

Symbian

The Symbian platform was developed by Nokia for certain models of smartphones. It is proprietary software. The operating system was discontinued in 2012, although a slimmed down version for basic phones was still developed until July 2014. Microsoft officially shelved the platform in favor of Windows Phone after the acquisition of Nokia.

Windows Mobile

Windows Mobile was from Microsoft. It was closed source and proprietary. The Windows CE operating system and Windows Mobile middleware are widely spread in Asia. The two improved variants of this operating system, Windows Mobile 6 Professional (for touch screen devices) and Windows Mobile 6 Standard, were unveiled in February 2007. It was criticized for having a user interface which is not optimized for touch input by fingers; instead, it is more usable with a stylus. However, unlike iOS, it supports both touch screen and physical keyboard configurations. Windows Mobile's market share sharply declined to just 5% in Q2 of 2010. Microsoft phased out the Windows Mobile OS to focus on Windows Phone.

Palm OS

Palm OS/Garnet OS was from Access Co. It is closed source and proprietary. webOS was introduced by Palm in January 2009 as the successor to Palm OS with Web 2.0 technologies, open architecture and multitasking capabilities.

webOS

webOS was from LG, although some parts are open source. webOS is a proprietary mobile operating system running on the Linux kernel, initially developed by Palm, which launched with the Palm Pre. After being acquired by HP, two phones (the Veer and the Pre 3) and a tablet (the TouchPad) running webOS were introduced in 2011. On August 18, 2011, HP announced that webOS hardware was to be discontinued but would continue to support and update webOS software and develop the webOS ecosystem. HP released webOS as open source under the name Open webOS, and plans to update it with additional features. On February 25, 2013 HP announced the sale of WebOS to LG Electronics, who planned to use the operating system for its "smart" or Internet-connected TVs. However HP retained patents underlying WebOS as well as cloud-based services such as the App Catalog.

Maemo

Maemo was a platform developed by Nokia for smartphones and Internet tablets. It is open source and GPL, based on Debian GNU/Linux and draws much of its GUI, frameworks and libraries from the GNOME project. It uses the Matchbox window manager and the GTK-based Hildon as its GUI and application framework.

MeeGo

MeeGo was from non-profit organization The Linux Foundation. It is open source and GPL. At the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Nokia and Intel both unveiled 'MeeGo', a mobile operating system that combined Moblin and Maemo to create an open-sourced experience for users across all devices. In 2011 Nokia announced that it would no longer pursue MeeGo in favor of Windows Phone. Nokia announced the Nokia N9 on June 21, 2011 at the Nokia Connection event in Singapore. LG announced its support for the platform.

LiMo

LiMo was from the LiMo Foundation. LiMo Foundation launched LiMo 4 on February 14, 2011. LiMo 4 delivers middleware and application functionality, including a flexible user interface, extended widget libraries, 3D window effects, advanced multimedia, social networking and location-based service frameworks, sensor frameworks, multi-tasking and multi-touch capabilities. In addition, support for scalable screen resolution and consistent APIs means that the platform can deliver a consistent user experience across multiple device types and form factors.

Customer satisfaction

According to a Readers' Choice Awards survey conducted by PC Magazine in 2013, Android and Windows Phone customers gave their phones a rating of 8.9 on a 0 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied) scale, an improvement of 0.3 and 0.6 points respectively. Android received an 8.9 (one of the highest ratings to date for an operating system) followed by iOS (7.3).

The biggest reasons given by readers when asked why they chose their mobile phones are as follow: operating system (72%) and 4G capability (51%) for Android, quality of email experience (83%) for Blackberry, availability of apps (63%) for iOS and operating system (48%) for Windows Phone (81%).

Market share

In 2006, Android, iOS and Windows Phone did not exist and just 64 million smartphones were sold. In 2014, more than a billion smartphones were sold and global market share was 85% for Android, 11% for iOS, 3% for Windows Phone and remaining 1% for all other platforms.

Mobile internet traffic share

As of November 2013, mobile data usage showed 55.17% of mobile data traffic to be from iOS, 33.89% from Android, 4.49% from Java ME (Nokia S40), 4.12% from Symbian, 1.65% from Windows Phone and 1% from BlackBerry. Internet Explorer Mobile can be switched to “Desktop view” by users, which identifies devices as Internet Explorer 9.0 on Windows 7, causing case mobile usage to be excluded in these statistics.